


caught in the crossfire

by wethethousands (atlantisairlock)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - War, Child Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Happy Ending, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2559422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/wethethousands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time she sees him before he's conscripted, Steve kisses her hand and promises he will be back for her and their little girl. </p><p>As he turns and walks away into the relentless rain, Peggy wants so badly to believe him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	caught in the crossfire

The last time she sees him before he's conscripted, Steve kisses her hand and promises he  _will_ be back for her and their little girl. 

As he turns and walks away into the relentless rain, Peggy wants so badly to believe him. 

 

 

Letters from the battlefield take weeks to come. She's heard the story from the woman next in line for fuel rations; of how Lorraine from a street over received a missive from her brother, handwritten messily in ink, a week after the telegram informing her that he had died honourably defending their country arrived. 

Peggy tries not to worry when Steve doesn't write - no news is better than good news, right?

 

 

Rebecca gets pneumonia and the doctors can't save her. 

The last time she miscarried, Steve was there to hold her tight and let her cry for the rest of the night. Peggy buries their only daughter alone, stoic, shedding no tears. 

 

 

More and more telegrams arrive as the war wages on. 

Her nightmares mostly centre around receiving one, and Peggy awakes every morning wide-eyed, shaking, in tears.

 

 

The war ends. They win - or do they, really?. 

The soldiers are coming back now, the newspapers say, but their quiet little town has suffered; there are sons and fathers and brothers and nephews and cousins and so many more who will never return. 

When Steve knocks on the door at six in the morning a week after they triumph Peggy wonders if it's even  _fair,_ that he gets to come back broken and ragged but _alive_ , when other families are getting their men back in caskets. Wonders if it would be better if he had died with a bullet through his head because what is there to come back to, wonders if, in a way, her Steve  _did_ die on the front, because the light in his eyes that she remembers so well has been extinguished. 

But there will be time for that later. She wraps her arms around him, buries her face in the hollow of his collarbone and breathes gunpowder, exhaustion, the sharp scent of blood. 

"I promised I'd be back," Steve says; it's sandpaper-harsh, chafes against her skin, and Peggy can't bear to hear it - just presses a kiss to his lips and steals the breath from his lungs. 

There will be time for all of it later, there will.

For now...

For now. 


End file.
